Saudi Arabia Considers a Single Gaming Company for EA and Savvy
The preliminary combination would likely wait for Savvy to close its $6 billion acquisition of Moonton, the Chinese studio behind Mobile Legends, and no agreement has been reached.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is considering a corporate structure that would place Electronic Arts and Savvy Games Group under one PIF-led gaming company, potentially giving the sovereign wealth fund a single vehicle for its gaming assets. The idea remains under discussion, and no agreement has been reached.
Bloomberg reported that PIF executives are considering the combination to coordinate acquisitions, game development, publishing, and intellectual property across the $214 billion video game industry. The proposal follows the Saudi-led consortium’s $55 billion buyout of EA, which completed on August 4.
Saudis Weigh Merging EA With Savvy to Create Global Gaming Giant
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Moonton acquisition comes first
Any decision on an EA and Savvy Games combination would likely wait until Savvy completes its planned $6 billion acquisition of Moonton, the Chinese mobile gaming company and studio behind Mobile Legends. Savvy agreed to the deal in March, and no final decision has been made on the possible EA combination. The proposal remains an early consideration rather than a signed transaction.
Saudi Arabia’s PIF established Savvy in 2021 as a major vehicle for its games industry investments. Its existing portfolio includes ESL FACEIT Group and Scopely, with Moonton joining the group if the pending acquisition closes.
Potential structure would span several gaming businesses
Scopely’s mobile catalog includes Pokémon GO and Monopoly Go!. Bringing EA into the same corporate umbrella would add its sports franchises, studios, live-service games, and wider publishing business, creating a group with reach across console, PC, mobile, sports, and organized competitive gaming.
How the businesses would be arranged remains unclear. EA could remain a separate company inside a larger group, or EA and Savvy could absorb one another. A combined organization would give PIF one central operation for acquisitions, publishing, game development, and managing intellectual property across its gaming investments.
PIF’s stated goal for Savvy is to achieve leadership status in the games industry by 2030. Bringing EA into the group would give that strategy a much larger publisher to direct, although it would also place the newly acquired company inside another layer of corporate restructuring.
EA’s new private ownership
EA entered private ownership for the first time in three decades when the Saudi-led consortium completed its buyout. The current ownership group includes PIF, Affinity Partners, and Silver Lake, with PIF holding the controlling interest. Earlier ownership reporting projected that PIF would hold a 93.4 percent stake after the deal.
EA is also carrying an $18 billion debt load connected to the acquisition. Combining corporate operations could offer a way to reduce duplicated costs, although no integration plan or confirmed changes for EA’s studios and games have been announced.
The transition has already brought concerns about layoffs, cost cutting, and whether EA’s creative direction will remain intact. Folding EA into Savvy would add another corporate reorganization only weeks after the buyout closed. The possible combination is a separate corporate change from that completed acquisition, and neither EA nor PIF commented on the proposal.
Regulatory review would follow
Any transaction would face regulatory review. Putting EA and Savvy under one state-backed owner would concentrate an even larger portion of the global games business under the PIF. Large deals in the game industry can draw antitrust inquiries, with Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard serving as an example of the scrutiny such deals can receive.
For now, EA remains under the consortium that acquired it while Saudi Arabia weighs whether to place the publisher inside Savvy’s broader gaming group. The Moonton purchase and any required regulatory review remain important conditions before the two businesses could be brought together, while the structure and timing of any combination are still unsettled.
Would bringing EA’s sports franchises together with Savvy’s mobile and esports holdings create a stronger company, or add more uncertainty for the publisher? Share your view in the comments and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
